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Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

arstechnica.com

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Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#631

Post by onetimeuse92304 »

tredre3 wrote: post #16
srmarm wrote: post #3

The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly di…

As an amateur EE, using mass market is a braindead idea in this case.

The controller is not built to deal with high humidity which I assume is a given in this kind of sub.

Another reason is that these devices are built out of very cheap components and are not at all designed to be reliable. You can easily design a controller that is much more reliable.

Having your multi million dollar sub grounded because you allowed a cheap component on board is pretty stupid imo.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#632

Post by imkehno »

jacurtis wrote: post #405
javajosh wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

As I have moved through my career and been in charge of larger and larger companies, I continue to be surprised how much of what you would expect is critical infrastructure that affects many people is being "cobbled" together. I've worked at some companies that manage huge systems that affects tens of millions of people, which cause extremely severe problems if they break, and they are "cobbled" together with a surpr…

Have to share the sentiment. I remember the expectation of great systems engineering I had when I was at the beginning of my career. You know, ”These things must’ve been done well, as thousands/millions people use these daily”. I was enlightened pretty fast by the first couple of years as a consultant.

Nowadays I expect something clumsy and mediocre, regardless of the organization, with very apparent problems and _maybe_ some bright spots somewhere in the system architecture.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#633

Post by hinkley »

ethbr0 wrote: post #411
dmonitor wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's an awful lot of keyboard engineering, given nobody knows what happened yet. Unless I'm mistaken, the subject article starts with the words "Submarine missing". The fact that the whole thing was jury rigged and double checked by nobody with certifications is enough to start pointing fingers at the engineers. This isn't the company's first trip either. They've taken multiple trips down and have almost lost the…

Yes. "Missing" Assuming it sunk, it'll be order of week before it's found. It'll be order of month before it's raised, if it can be. And then after analysis we might know why it sunk. +60 hours after lost contact, while there are possibly still people alive inside the vehicle, seems premature and crass to be casting accusations for internet points.

They claim the vehicle has consumables to last 4 days, so while it’s a little premature at 3 days in to declare it’s over, if you have an injured person that requires an EMT and the ambulance won’t get there until the situation devolves…

In these situations you don’t do everything you can because it will change the outcome. You do everything you can so that someday soon you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror while you brush your teeth. So you can sleep at night.

I haven’t been in this bad of a situation, but I’ve been in plenty where people second guessed themselves or someone else for years even decades after. Everyone has to get to “enough” on their own terms or it festers.

So we are letting a bunch of people figure it out. If a miracle happens, awesome. But unless they’re all trance meditating down there and have Wim Hoff hypothermia training it’s not good.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#634

Post by finitemonkey »

twbarr wrote: post #91
tredre3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly di…

There's a middle ground between "hardware store crap" and "custom." The aviation industry has plenty of standard interior lighting and environmental control system that's known not to light people on fire or short out or otherwise fail and kill somebody. https://www.collinsaerospace.com/what-we-do/industries/busin... These are still COTS products.

Apollo 1 has been too long ago. Collective memory fades. Each generation seems to need its own disasters to keep its safety standards up.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#635

Post by vanviegen »

csb6 wrote: post #541
javajosh wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

> You can't stop that, and personally, I don't think its a good idea. To get it you'd need a nanny state that snoops on everyone and steps in to stop you "for your own safety". It's easy to imagine scenarios where this gets out of hand. Personally, I think it ought to be illegal to misrepresent your service’s safety. I seriously doubt the passengers onboard were aware of OceanGate’s whistleblower lawsuit or the claim…

> Personally, I think it ought to be illegal to misrepresent your service’s safety

Of course it is. But I think GP was just saying that there are no agencies to check rare venture like this. At least not before an incident happens.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#636

Post by conradfr »

wespiser_2018 wrote: post #558
Aeolun wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of us would have designed a better submarine I dunno. I would never go with wireless over cabled, certainly not as my primary steering method, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the only method onboard to control the thing. Maybe it’s better if these things are build by paranoid instead of adventurous people?

It's pretty easy, just hire one subject matter expert (SME) on submarines and listen to them. So many problems with this scheme, though. No rigorous test (depth, survival, atmosphere), lack of SMEs, carbon fiber hull, failed to learn lessons from aviation (don't lock people in a room that can burn), lack of ventilation, failure to provide emergency breathing, no voice comms, and finally the comms loss during testing…

That "retired sub chef" mais not be inspirational enough.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1671372833979785217

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#637

Post by balder1991 »

bboygravity wrote: post #604
zarzavat wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder is likely dead and paid the ultimate price for his negligence. There’s simply not much you can do about people who are willing to die and take other people with them, whether intentionally or negligently. You can’t put a dead person on trial. I believe that the GP’s point is that there’s no omniscient agency that can preemptively stop people from doing stupid things. There’s not enough resources to watch…

> There’s not enough resources to watch everything that everybody is doing all the time. Have you ever heard of the name "Edward Snowden"? What everybody is doing is already literally being watched all the time and it has been that way or at least decades and has gotten worse with technological evolution.

It definitely hasn’t worked then. How’s that approach any efficient?

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#638

Post by tylerchr »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #417
proggy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

> it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. The pressure vessel was a titanium hemisphere bonded to a carbon fiber cylinder. It was destined to fail with such a fundamentally compromised design like that.

I don’t know that much about materials science. Why is a “titanium hemisphere bonded to a carbon fiber cylinder” “such a fundamentally compromised design” in this application?

I imagine maybe carbon fiber would be better in tension (e.g. airframes) than in compression (this), perhaps. Or do carbon fiber and titanium not get along somehow?

(EDIT: Had tension and compression backwards.)

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#639

Post by finitemonkey »

ethbr0 wrote: post #208
dmonitor wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't afford to qualify the components on your 4000m diving vehicle, you can't afford to make a 4000m diving vehicle. See: the fact that they lost their diving vehicle.

Pressure hull >> ballast control >> thrusters >> everything else I'm not sure why everyone is taking potshots at a company for trying something crazy with willing passengers . Everyone involved knew what they were getting into. Kudos to them for trying, even if they're dead. > See: the fact that they lost their diving vehicle. That's an awful lot of keyboard engineering, given nobody knows what happened yet.

[flagged]

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#640

Post by vanviegen »

bboygravity wrote: post #604
zarzavat wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder is likely dead and paid the ultimate price for his negligence. There’s simply not much you can do about people who are willing to die and take other people with them, whether intentionally or negligently. You can’t put a dead person on trial. I believe that the GP’s point is that there’s no omniscient agency that can preemptively stop people from doing stupid things. There’s not enough resources to watch…

> There’s not enough resources to watch everything that everybody is doing all the time. Have you ever heard of the name "Edward Snowden"? What everybody is doing is already literally being watched all the time and it has been that way or at least decades and has gotten worse with technological evolution.

Indexing people's online activity (in order to search for specific kinds of activiy) is a far cry from watching everything everybody is doing, let alone acting on all that information.
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